


Matters of Perspective

by SnippySchnapps



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Demons, Ghost romance, Ghosts, Haven't really decided yet, Humour, I say ghost but I mean that in the loosest of terms, I wasn't sure if I should tag character death but a character does die, M/M, Magic AU, Memoirs from the stars - au, Occult Stuff, Romance, Sam is also really gay, Witches, an au of an original work because sometimes it just be like that, and I hate to spoil but I really should also tag, better safe than sorry, dedicated to mi kara Maple, don't worry he's fine, ghost au, he can walk it off, he comes back though so it's ok, hope you like this you lil shit, laila and scarlet are really gay, probably, that doesn't affect the plot but I thought you should know anyway, tw death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 12:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14544567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnippySchnapps/pseuds/SnippySchnapps
Summary: Hirö Crivolsten was weird.Or, at least, he had been. Anybody in Evergreen knew about Hirö - Spooky Hirö, Too-Quiet Hirö, Barely-Make-A-Sound-When-He-Breathes Hirö; it didn’t matter if they didn’t know his name - even before the accident, more than half the student body (and a good few teachers) had referred to the Crivolsten boy as a ghost.When he returned after being missing for a month and a half looking so pale he was practically blue and so listless on his feet he was almost floating, it didn’t turn heads. In fact, it did the opposite - the students turned away, tried not to pay attention to him, didn’t whisper under their breaths like they used to.For all they had joked about Hirö being a ghost, nobody was sure what to do when it actually happened.[EDIT: chapter one is currently under huge revision and the plot will change slightly when chapter two comes out, so sorry to anyone who’s read what’s currently here and was enjoying that.. I’ll be keeping the original, though, and if people are interested I might post it separately as a oneshot.]





	Matters of Perspective

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a mini au of my current original writing project, Memoirs From The Stars, in which Hirö is a ghost (or demon, depends on who you ask) rather than an alien, requested by one of my boyfriends as a oneshot. It... turned out to be more than a oneshot, and I plan on updating with more chapters in the future, so if you're interested, stay tuned!
> 
> At some point I'll be posting MFTS itself as well, but currently you can't find it online, so ask me about it if you're interested :>
> 
> Let me know if you see any typos or errors so that I can fix them, and remember that I feed off of your comments and feedback. It sustains me.

 

Hirö Crivolsten was _weird._

 

Or, at least, he _had_ been. Anybody in Evergreen knew about Hirö - _Spooky_ Hirö, _Too-Quiet_ Hirö, _Barely-Make-A-Sound-When-He-Breathes_ Hirö; it didn’t matter if they didn’t know his name - even before the accident, more than half the student body (and a good few teachers) had referred to the Crivolsten boy as a _ghost._

 

When he returned after being missing for a month and a half looking so pale he was practically blue and so listless on his feet he was almost floating, it didn’t turn heads. In fact, it did the opposite - the students turned away, tried not to pay attention to him, didn’t whisper under their breaths like they used to.

 

For all they had joked about Hirö being a ghost, nobody was sure what to do when it actually happened.

 

There were many who thought it was a farce, of course - teachers alternately stoically ignored the gossip or attempted to shut it down with strong words about bullying and harassment, who either took pity on him or who were just fed up with the classroom disruptions and the sudden, angry debates about whether or not Wes the conspiracy nut had been right all along or if Hirö was just a really, really weird kid.

 

When a body was found not even a week after his return, charred and barely recognisable, but not completely, and when the black cast-iron ring Hirö always had inexplicably pierced in one ear was present, and when the dental records were identified it was confirmed.

 

Hirö Crivolsten was dead. Evergreen was haunted.

* * *

 

 

He stopped coming to class soon after news spread.

 

Most people guessed it was because he felt he wasn’t welcome anymore; that he’d come back to ‘go through the motions’ and had never meant any harm, but when people finally started to recognise the fact that _there was an actual dead person floating in the corner of the classroom_ , the teachers began feeling less inclined to stand up for him, and the students were too frightened to get into any of the usual debates.

 

Sam always wondered why people never asked him what had happened to make him disappear ( _to kill him,_ whispered a small part of his mind), especially since they were all so interested in why and how he _came back._ The official story was that he’d gotten caught in a bad storm on the way home through the woods - he lived out in the middle of nowhere, apparently, like Sam did, though unlike Sam he didn’t live _with_ anyone - and was struck by lightning. _An awful way to go,_ said the newspapers. _Our condolences,_ said the police. Nobody was sure who exactly they were giving condolences to.

 

Hirö Crivolsten stopped coming to class, but he did not leave entirely.

 

Once the shock had worn off, it was easy to notice the patterns; he’d linger in the halls during classes, out of sight but not out of earshot - watch from the rafters in the repurposed church building, now a student-run coffee shop, during break periods as students went about their business - wander the treeline at the edge of the woods at lunch, flitting between trees and half-invisible under the light of the sun.

 

On second thought, perhaps it’s not easy to notice the patterns, because without fail there’s always at least one person that screams. Like now.

 

The girl - Sam isn’t sure of her name - thankfully cuts off her shrill cry almost as quickly as she’d let it out.  She’s staring up at the slanted ceiling of the coffee shop, shaking, and doesn’t seem to be entertaining any thought of moving anytime soon.

 

Above her, a wide-eyed ghost stares down, flickering tail _(since when did he swap legs for a tail?)_ wrapped around the wooden beam he’s situated on and arms tucked under him almost like a cat.

 

Sam doesn’t understand why she’s screaming. He looks adorable.

 

 _Must be new,_ he thinks.

 

“Are you gonna order or are you gonna stare at Spooky McGlowstick all day?” Laila, the co-manager and current barista, asks impatiently. She looks like she’s trying to look bored, but is failing miserably and seems to be enjoying the torment of the girl in front of her a little too much. Sam almost feels sorry for her.

 

Almost. She _is_ holding up the line, and he wants his midday caffeine fix _before_ the next period, preferably.

 

“ _What the fuck”,_ whispers the girl.

 

Sam finds himself sighing, getting impatient; “It’s only Hirö - he won’t hurt you. Can you hurry up and order? I’m tired and have a test in, like, fifteen minutes.”

 

The girl looks at him like he’s mad, another whispered curse tumbling out of her mouth, before she returns to staring at the ghost, somehow looking even more horrified than when she first noticed him. Hirö blinks, the end of his tail swaying.  He finds himself exchanging a look with Laila.

 

Suddenly, the girl pushes past him and all but flies through the door. A glance at the rafters reveals that Hirö had decided to stretch languidly, and how exactly that had managed to scare her was beyond him. Ghost or otherwise, he’s about as intimidating as a tub of vanilla icecream.

 

Voicing this out loud just got him a deadpan glare and a snort from Hirö and Laila respectively.

 

* * *

  


It didn’t take as long as it probably should have for both the school and the surrounding community to warm up to their new resident spectre.

 

It really started with the thirteen-strong witch coven that suddenly decided to set up shop - literally, it seemed, since there’s now a quaint-looking place on the outskirts of town that seems to double as both the shared house of the small coven, and as some kind of herbal remedies shop (which will sell you much more than just herbs, if you know how to ask). They moved in once they’d gotten word of a ‘peaceful storm spirit taking residence in the town’, and so far had attended no less than three bake sales with treats that they’d kept firmly away from anyone except for Hirö.

 

(Sam wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but the way his face lit up when he realised the witches were not only talking _to him_ but had also brought him food gave him a nice, warm feeling, and he decided then that he’d have to ask what their recipe was).

 

After that, it was only a matter of time before students began paying attention to him - Sam thinks that they actually talk to him more _now_ than when he was alive, and he can’t decide if he should laugh or find it extremely depressing - and whilst people still give him a wide berth most of the time, or avoid eye contact, or do their best to keep most conversations to an absolute minimum, they’d at least stopped walking on eggshells whenever Hirö was in their vicinity.

 

The two students running the coffee shop are a different story entirely.

 

Laila, insisting for whatever reason that everyone refer to her as ‘Sprite’, seems to treat him like an ordinary person - a glowing, floating, and constantly changing person who has grown horns and fangs and other obviously supernatural features in under two months, but a person nonetheless. This wouldn’t be a problem, if Laila’s concept of ‘treating someone as a normal person’ didn’t also mean ‘antagonising someone to the point of insanity’. Sam isn’t even sure she actually knows what Hirö’s name is, with how many nicknames, most of which involve at least one curse, she’s dubbed him with. Which is why it _is_ something of a problem - unlike a perfectly sane, normal person with self-preservation instincts, Sam’s recently learnt that Hirö is extremely stubborn and doesn’t do the easy thing and go away when faced with Laila’s teasing, and instead somehow manages to retaliate without even looking in her direction.

 

Staying in exactly one spot in front of the cash register and refusing to move, for example; at first it seemed to be something that could potentially hold up the line, but then Laila discovered that he’d chosen to stay intangible and just worked like he wasn’t there, which only served to drive any potential customers away so they didn’t have to enjoy their coffee with a side of body horror. Or the time he possessed the freezer and refused to let Laila get to the ice, only allowing Scarlet to open it. Or when he effectively turned himself into a hat and sat on her head for hours, refusing to leave her even when she threatened to call an exorcist. Most of Hirö’s retaliation seems to involve refusing to do something, as far as Sam can tell.

 

There’s Scarlet, too, who’s all smarts and wit where Laila is bluntness and morbid humour. The only reason they were able to set up the shop at all was because of the fact that she graduated early and had the time and ability to do so, and the fact that Laila was a drop-out with only a food-tech course and half an art degree to her name got mostly overlooked in favour of Scarlet’s unexpected request. She treats Hirö like a normal person, too, though luckily her definition of this is somewhat less destructive. Only somewhat, though, since together they somehow manage to create chaos bigger than what Laila left to her own devices in a coffee shop ever could. Maybe it’s because Scarlet knows a little too much about how to make bombs big enough to be impressive but small enough to be only slightly illegal paired with Hirö’s apparent control over electricity and all things glowing. Maybe it’s because Hirö’s bored and Scarlet has no impulse control. Maybe it’s something else. Sam isn’t sure, he just knows to steer clear of the Nuts & Bolts Cafe before 7:30 a.m.

 

Sam likes to think he might be a part of their little group, but he isn’t sure. They definitely treat him in the same familiar, teasing manner, and Hirö smiles at him rather than looking at him with a blank, _dead_ expression, so that’s.. probably a good sign. He’s not really sure why, though. Unlike Laila ‘it’s not even that big of a cult’ Thornton and Scarlet ‘lets blow it up’ D’Maine, Sam.. isn’t very interesting. He just keeps coming back for the coffee.

 

Really, that’s _all._ If he ends up spending an afternoon with a coven of witches learning how to make ghost-friendly cupcakes and lattes, it’s none of anyone’s business, and if he blushes a little when Hirö smiles at him like he’s a miracle made real, then maybe Sam can admit to himself that he might do if again. But only because Laila makes better coffee when she’s not bickering with a grumpy ghost.

 

Sam does _not_ have a crush on a dead person.

 

* * *

  


“I have a crush on a dead person,” Sam says forlornly, looking at the ceiling of his shared dorm.

 

Jo just snickers, because of course he does.

 

“Why won’t you take this seriously? You’re the one in the psych course, aren’t you supposed to be my live-in therapist? Tell me how to not have a crush on a dead person. I refuse to be a necrophiliac.”

 

He rolls over on his bed so that he’s lying on his front, looking mournfully at Jo across the room. Books and papers are scattered across his bed, and at least five brightly coloured gel pens are sat inexplicably next to him. They clash with practically everything else _about_ Jo, but he never seems to care. Apparently they help him study.

 

Jo gives him a pointed look; “First of all, I am _not_ your ‘live-in therapist’, and second of all, that’s not necrophilia, that’s spectrophilia. Though if you’re planning to fuck our resident not-quite-living glowstick, please don’t do it here. I hear ectoplasm stains.”

 

Sam definitely does _not_ squawk indignantly at that. “How did you know I was talking about Hirö? I could have had the hots for an actual corpse. Maybe I’m a crazy psychopath and you and your therapist powers never managed to pick it up because of that one class you skipped last week. You never know.”

 

Jo just laughs at him again before returning to his studies, leaving Sam to wallow in self-pity.

 

* * *

 

Whilst Sam had never really considered himself one of the ‘popular’ kids, he’d always been able to recognise that he wasn’t exactly the sort of person that got targeted by bigger, meaner pricks with no self-respect. He wasn’t popular, but he didn’t particularly care, and because of that nobody really paid him any mind, other than the occasional hyper-masculine sports star wannabe trying to reaffirm his own fragile heterosexuality by poking fun at Sam’s lack thereof. That amused Sam more than it hurt him, though, so other than that he never had any particular reason to dread walking the halls.

 

That was probably why it was so easy for Jared Owens to waltz right up to Sam and pin him to his own locker before Sam had even noticed the sudden quiet of the hallway near to him.

 

He wasn’t generally afraid of people, even when they were mad at him - he’s good at talking people down, or at least getting them to lose interest. But with over six feet of _jock_ leering down at him, Sam certainly wasn’t feeling confident.

 

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be confused, though, because Jared had just rather menacingly asked Sam where his boyfriend was, and whilst he’d usually think that was just a generalised jab, the way he’d said it made it seem rather specific.

 

“Um.. who?” He found himself asking.

 

Jared sneers at him. “ _I_ heard you’ve been flirting with that freaky kid that bit it a few months back. Got a thing for corpses?”

 

Sam jerks; surely Jo hadn’t ratted him out? No - he wouldn’t, they’re friends. But then how’d Mr Manly-Man here managed to get wind of _that?_ Then Jared’s words processed, and he felt a stab of anger.

 

“He’s not a _corpse,_ ” he ends up saying, “and even if I did like him in that way _(which I don’t)_ it wouldn’t be any of your business. Let me go.”

 

Jared’s expression seems to do an interesting series of facial gymnastics before settling back into a sneer that’s somehow even more condescending than it had been before Sam had decided to open his mouth. He starts to say something, eyes promising pain, but before he even utter a single word, the corners of his lips twitch down and his eyes grow comically wide, staring somewhere above Sam’s head.

 

 _“Boo,”_ says an angry, reverberating voice that seems to come from his suddenly extremely cold locker.

 

The fact that Jared does the smart thing and run from the pissed-sounding ghost sticking his head out of Sam’s locker is actually kind of surprising, considering what Sam had gathered about his grades, but he still let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding; “Nice timing,” he breaths, turning to face Hirö - who’s still positioned with only his head visible, which probably should have been disconcerting, but Sam has to hold back the urge to laugh.

 

Hirö just shrugs, or tries to without his shoulders showing, which really just looks like he’s bobbing his head weirdly. This close, Hirö seems to leech any heat from the air, and it’s easy to see how he’d changed since when he’d made his return - any illusion of humanity thoroughly ruined by translucent blue skin and curved horns, and what Sam suddenly realises are pupiless and _glowing_ eyes.

 

He should be scared. Sam should be scared, but he isn’t. That’s probably not good.

 

“It was kind of lame,” Hirö is saying, and Sam realises he’s probably staring and maybe should stop, “all I did was play up to just about every horror trope in the book and hope he’d take a hint.”

 

There’s that smile again - the small one that Sam never seems to see him directing anyone else, the one that makes his heart do things it really shouldn’t and suddenly his throat is dry. “It, um, was, it was great, you did great, uh, thanks.”

 

That only makes the smile get bigger, and Sam feels like he’s drowning.

 

“Thanks, by the way,” he says, and at Sam’s confused noise _(definitely not an embarrassing croak)_ he continues, “for telling him I’m not a corpse. That makes me feel… weird. It means a lot.”

 

And then Hirö’s cheeks seem to get a shade more blue, and is he _blushing_ , and Sam’s not really sure what to say to that sort of thing so he just stands there feeling awkward.

 

The halls have cleared by now, even the few stragglers that had initially stopped to watch not wanting to risk being late, and Sam realises with a start that he is a _student_ and should really be in class right now, so he says a quick and extremely pathetic goodbye and if he somehow managed to say _see you at lunch_ without even thinking about it, then he _won’t_ be troubling himself over it for the next hour as the class slowly goes by.

 

Really, he won’t.

 

* * *

 

He did.

 

It had just slipped out. Sam hadn’t expected him to listen to him, let alone actually _show up_ to lunch, especially since Sam hadn’t even said _where,_ and it’s not like he ever really sits with anyone other than Jo, but Jo’s not even with him right now because he’s hanging out with _his_ friends and they don’t really like Sam that much (he isn’t sure why), so how did Hirö know to come looking for him in his obscure spot tucked away behind the church-turned-coffee-shop and the large, old oak tree growing beside it?

 

He ends up settling on ‘it’s probably a ghost thing’.

 

Hirö, floating on his front just under one of the church’s back windows, looks delighted, so Sam figures it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

 

He finds himself smiling nervously, and goes to sit on the bench to Hirö’s left; “I, um, I wasn’t really expecting you to show up here.”

 

That seems to startle Hirö, because one of his eyebrows flies up beneath his fringe and he smiles doggedly. “Oh yeah?”

 

“I mean, that’s not to say I thought you’d ditch me, I just, I hadn’t really meant to imply you _had_ to show up, and I didn’t even say where so it’s not like I’d blame you and… I’m rambling. Sorry.”

 

He can feel his face burning, and tries not to look too flustered. It mustn’t work, though, because Hirö bites his lip and seems to try not to laugh, which just makes everything worse, so he looks pointedly away and focuses on the coffee he’d grabbed on the way.

 

Stifling an amused snort, Hirö moves closer and floats just shy of the bench, close enough that Sam can feel the cold he gives off brush up against his arm; “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh,” he’s saying, but Sam can barely pay attention because all his blood seems to be rushing straight to his cheeks, “...it’s kind of cute, y’know,” and that just makes his heart stutter and he’s pretty sure this is how he dies, “and I really did appreciate the offer.”

 

“You’re, uh, you’re welcome, no, uh, problem.” Says Sam, smoothly and not at all stuttering.

 

They sit for a few minutes in relative peace, the awkward atmosphere slowly receding as Sam quietly eats. Hirö has his arms and head rested on his… knees? Tail? And is watching something in the oak tree. Darting his eyes over in the same direction, Sam spots a robin hopping around on a branch next to a small nest, twittering gently, and he feels himself smile.

 

...How _did_ Hirö know where to find him?

 

“So, I never found out how you managed to figure out where to meet…” he trails off, leaving the unasked question hanging in the air.

 

Hirö blinks at him, before smiling apologetically; “I used to walk by here from the art building on the way to the cafe; I remember seeing you come here for lunch all the time. I figured that’s where you’d probably be.”

 

He looks a little bashful, as if he’d been caught spying, though Sam decides that it’s not such a crime with the way other people always used to watch _him._

 

The use of the past tense does tug slightly at his heartstrings, though, and he feels his smile grow sad. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he finds himself saying, and immediately wishes he could take it back. _Why would I bring something like that up?! Stupid-_

 

“Thanks,” Hirö chokes out with a blush, “but it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

 

They smile at each other, and Sam finds himself feeling just a little less lonely.

 

***

_tbc_

**Author's Note:**

> chapter two should be coming soon :>


End file.
